


time without end

by copperiisulfate



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 08:57:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15860400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: Nothing is accidental, Habari used to say.





	time without end

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for the side:blue novel (and films i guess)

 

He goes to that part of the coast of Kanto every summer, has a drink by the water.

 

i)

 

The days were long and dawn would break early in the summers.

Habari would want to spar in the dojo, would say it was to keep himself quick on his feet and Zenjoh would call it massively unfair because he was still half-asleep.

_Why all this trouble? All you have to do is point me at what you need done, like a blade, like a gun, and then stand back._

It was a terrible running joke that only Zenjoh seemed to enjoy rather at Habari's expense.

 _You mean like a loose cannon?_  Habari would tease back, dodging a kick.

And then, at the end of their session: _What if I don't want to be the kind of King that stands back?_  He would ask this, rhetorical, catching his breath as his face hovered above Zenjoh, whom he had efficiently pinned to the floor.

This whole scene was always immeasurably brutal, least of all because Habari was outlandishly strong for someone his size, but mostly, it was hard to take him seriously like this, forehead wrinkled in concentration as his hair came loose from his tie and fell into his eyes and also Zenjoh's below.

Moreover, Zenjoh would constantly go back and forth between wanting to hack it off with his sword and wanting to run his hands through it. He'd had a feeling for some time that neither would ultimately end well.

 

 

***

 

 

He goes to that part of the coast of Kanto every fall, takes a walk by the water.  

 

ii)

 

For the longest time in the new Annex, Zenjoh's window faces the yard where the special forces have their drills every morning. This time of year, the leaves are changing colours and the trees seem ablaze, vivid with reds and golds across the grounds. 

( _Nothing is accidental,_  Habari used to say, and it rings in his ears now every time he catches sight of the new Blue King.)

Once, Habari, Shiotsu and Zenjo had looked out at this very field every morning, planning drills and forming divisions and breathing life into what stands of SCEPTER4 today.

Though it would always be easy--far easier?--to remember _his_ king standing poised and certain and proud of his kingdom, Zenjoh also remembers the earlier days, all the patchwork and glue and whispers of hoping this works, _somehow, someday._

All of it is better than remembering him at his end. Years and years pass and there are still nights where it is the only thing Zenjoh sees when he closes his eyes.

 

 

***

 

 

He goes to that part of the coast of Kanto every winter, says a prayer for the new year.

 

iii) 

 

Every year, Habari Jin would introduce him to new members as his best swordsman and would say it with such levity and precision that all of Zenjoh's untempered fire and illusions of invincibility would feel suddenly irrelevant because _this person_  had found him worthy, had regarded him as the best, had regarded him as _his_.  

_What else even mattered anyway?_

He didn't ever dare say it out loud but he knew it and believed it the way the sky was blue and then cycled to violet to black and so on and so forth. It was as steadfast as the turning of the Earth and the passage of time, and all the strange, glorious patterns of planets and galaxies that arose amidst endless entropy. 

What they were hoping to create was not so different and, similarly, no small feat. 

He remembered a time when he didn't care for any of it.

And then, like a flick of a switch and a powerhouse coming alive in the guise of a presence in his life, he found that he cared for little else.

Once, he would have though it laughable, impossible, placing the entirety of your existence in the palm of one person. There wasn't really a word for it. _Trust_ only went so far.

There wasn't a word for it right up until perhaps, there was, and even then, it felt like a gross underestimation. 

 

 

***

 

 

iv)

Long before the slate and the sword above Habari's head, long before Kagutsu Genji happened to them, even though he knew it was never going to come true, Zenjoh had wanted to promise, the way children do, young and oblivious and irrationally wishful:

 _You and I_   _are going to live forever._

_I am going to make you live forever._

He goes to that part of the coast of Kanto every spring, where he ran his sword through his friend, his king, his life entire, and he leaves flowers by the water.  

He used to leave apologies with them once. Over the years, they have turned into promises of a different sort: an oath to a legacy that, to Habari, was once (and to Zenjoh, is still) worth everything.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> minimal canon knowledge of super minor characters with minimal canon appearances + me getting disproportionately emotional apparently = this.
> 
> title from the below passage by jeanette winterson from 'written on the body':
> 
> _you act as though we will be together for ever. you act as though there is infinite pleasure and time without end. how can i know that? my experience has been that time always ends. in theory you are right, the quantum physicists are right, the romantics and the religious are right. time without end. in practice we both wear a watch._


End file.
